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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Will Republicants Snatch Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory ?

Two mutually exclusive data bits have existed this week in tandem with each other, allowing the main stream media and the Democrats to deny the existence of one and commit to stone the other. The two bits of data are that the American public overwhelmingly blames Republicants for the partial shutdown of the federal government, and Barack Obama's approval rating is at its lowest point, thirty seven percent, since his term as president commenced almost five years ago. Of course anyone who understands statistics knows these two "facts" can not both be true. Especially since the President's approval rating has seen a four percentage point drop since the "shutdown" began, twelve days ago.
I am going to go out on the proverbial limb and say that the latter statistic, the President's plummeting approval rating, is the accurate one. I do not say this for partisan reasons, although it makes the partisan in me satisfied to see the American people finally waking up to the Obama train wreck presidency, but because of President Obama's reaction in the last two days. He has softened his "I will not talk until the Republicants surrender unconditionally to the power that is me" stance, and met with Speaker Boehner and other Republicant leaders on Thursday at the White House. And although there was no outcome from the meeting other than the meeting itself, it is a sign that the White House's internal polling may be showing that they are losing the shutdown battle in the minds of the voters.
My previous analysis not withstanding, I am not foolish enough to ever under estimate the ability of John Boehner and House Republicants to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And these "negotiations" with Mr. Obama may be a well disguised surrender plan by Republicants. I will consider it so if the debt limit ceiling is increased, even for six weeks, with only a promise from President Obama to negotiate on the other issues at some time in the future. Because as we all know, and the Speaker should be painfully aware, the President will conveniently lose his tongue to talk about anything once he is allowed to take the country further into debt.
The idea that the United States would default on its financial obligations if the debt limit is not increased is a fallacy that even one of the largest credit ratings agencies in the world, Moody's, dispelled this week in the Wall Street Journal. The federal government confiscates 230 billion dollars in taxes from the private economy every month, the interest on the outstanding debt is 18 billion dollars a month. I am not quite sure how anyone can create a default out of that situation, unless Barrack Obama deliberately decides not to pay the interest on the nation's debt, almost half of which he is responsible for in the last five years. These are indeed perilous times in which we live, made even more so by a President who is hell bent on burying future generations of Americans under a mountain of debt, and an opposition party that appears not to fully understand the meaning of that term.